Sing me a song that was a hit before your mother was born.
Speaking of before your mother was born…
Songs to Know
20
May 13
Takes Time
“Takes Time” by Jim Guthrie
For the last several years, Jim Guthrie has been making an impact with his film & game soundtracks (which are awesome: Indie Game The Movie & Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery).
His new solo album struck a very different chord. It’s full of charm and movement. It never overstepped itself, but it sank so easily beneath my skin. It’s a contender for my favorite album of the year.
“I ran out of time making time machines. Time won’t last.”
24
Oct 12
I don’t wanna be on this dark road I’m on.
“Fortune Teller” by Calexico
I love lonely songs. They echo so beautifully in my melancholy.
I was just standing, turning around. That’s when they caught me heading down. “Keep on going don’t look away,” that’s what they tell me. That’s what they say.
There are many types of loneliness and many ways one can be alone. There’s the perfect solitude of isolation, the frightening emptiness of hopelessness, the numb silence of detachment, the fearful tremor of uncertainty, and the heavy ache of dread.
You’re a pretty thought, I suppose. I’m just trying to hold up as I go. And one day, I swear, I’ll spread my wings. I’m on my way to finer things.
Loneliness is often like a dog, following faithfully with foreboding in its every breath. After a while, you go for stretches of time forgetting it’s there. But there are moments when you hear its howl. And they howl in lonely songs.
I’m walking with the fortune teller. I can see my own way home. But I don’t like this dark road anymore, and I don’t wanna be alone for long.
I don’t wanna be alone for long. I don’t wanna be on this dark road I’m on.
22
Sep 12
Pop Brilliant: How To Sing a Pop Song
“Midnight” by Yazoo
There are many female pop singers nowadays that could take a lesson (or a few) from Alison Moyet (this song specifically). So, Alison was something like 21 when she and Vince Clarke put down this track. And she killed it. She killed it, then slayed it, then buried it in the backyard.
So, I’ve always dug Upstairs at Eric’s. Haters, hate. It’s a good record. But Midnight is killer. It’s pop perfection. No, it doesn’t mess around with perfection. It burns it up. It’s like a raging fire in a heat wave. And it’s all the vocal. Without that performance it’s just a mediocre pop tune with cheesy pleading lyrics. But the vocal performance takes it where few could have. This is the way to record this kind of pop song. And I don’t think many singers these days could do this.
And this album was how she BEGAN her music career! C’mon. A 21-year-old beginner tearing out this vocal? Amazing.
“Playing with fire gets you burned. And I’m still burning.”
She’s delivering it whole-heartely from the start, bringing all the emotion the song can handle. But when she kicks in a higher gear from around 2:17 on, it explodes the song. It’s no longer some synth-pop, electro-dance tune, it’s Alison pouring, spewing, singing her heart out. And I can’t imagine that it would be easy to get your heart back once you do something like that. After this take, everyone in the studio must have been stunned.
Anyway, yeah, Midnight isn’t just my favorite track on Upstairs, it’s a whole textbook on how to sing a pop song.
16
Sep 12
It’s always been a long-shot or worse
“I’m Not Talking” by AC Newman
I’m a fan of AC Newman’s solo career. And he’s adding to it next month. So, I’m looking forward to that.
No one wants to weigh things down, but they tend to fly away and rescue teams will look for days. I like the way things are. I say abandon the search for an author of a small work.
Speaking of AC Newman’s solo career…
7
Sep 12
Age Can Be Beautiful (and Powerful)
“Live In New York City” by Paul Simon
It seems that, in our culture that spoils youth and dismisses maturity, the beauty of age often goes ignored. Paul Simon and The Sound of Silence are both aging. In this live recording from last year, you can hear how beautifully both are aging.
The lyrics and melody mature and take on a power that hits with all the combined weight of 47 years. Consider what this lyrics means in our current cultural climate (or to us as individuals) and what they might mean to us:
And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made. And the sign flashed its warning in the words that it was forming. And the sign said, “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, and whispered in the sound of silence.”
There’s a growing depth to Paul Simon’s voice as well. Where his voice was once urgent, it’s now at ease. As I recall, Sam Cooke once said that he sang as if he were talking. And that fluid, smooth delivery of his was much like a conversation. Paul Simon, as a singer, has grown into that same natural ease. Speaking and reciting as much as singing: Hear my words that I might teach you. Take my arms that I might reach out to you. But my words, like silent raindrops, fell and echoed in the wells of silence.
And while the words were penned when he was a very young man, they’ve stayed alive and growing in his voice, in our musical culture, and in our subconscious.
And that’s how powerful age can be. When you live with something most (or all) of your life, and it speaks to you, it reaches into parts of you that you yourself have limited access to.
And speak it ought to. I fear that the way we live produces very little depth, and the voices that speak into us don’t reach in to far. I fear that those voices speak more from the media pushed at us constantly and the ceaseless propaganda flooding our consciousness, rather than from the deep seeded intention of thought and imagination. I worry that we may suffer from a disease that keeps us in a Peter Pan cocoon of ignorance and superficiality that will not allow us to wizen and mature.
And I fear that if our voices never mature, they will die.
“Fools,” said I, “You do not know. Silence, like a cancer grows.”
Speaking of aging…
3
Sep 12
A Treasure Trove
Somewhere between the mixtape and the streaming playlist lived the compilation CD, or mix CD. I recently came across a treasure trove of these CDs that I hadn’t listened to in a few years. And half the fun of discovering them again were the vague, cryptic titles written (or drawn) on them. Titles like “My Mind Was Changed With a Gun and a Case of Vinegar” and “Lucas Blasto’s Brilliant Kazoo Corps.”
So, in memory of the lost art of mixtape and mix CD making, here are a few songs I rediscovered listening to the CDs.
